Service Date: 7 September, 2008

We celebrated and gave thanks for the birth of Jelena Rose Armsworth.

Hymns

R&S 41: For the beauty of the earth
The Aaronic Blessing (R&S 420)
R&S 663: Love divine
Law you gave, O God our King
R&S 95: God is love

Sermon

Deuteronomy 6:4-7; Psalm 119:33-40; Mark 10:13-16; Romans 13:8-14
A little while earlier in the service, I invited you all to promise something. I'll just refresh your memory, though it's on your order of service too: I invited you to promise that we as a church would ‘undertake to provide for the instruction of Jelena in the gospel of God's love, the example of Christian faith and character, and the strong support of the family of God in prayer and friendship'. Quite a tall order, especially as some people won't have been aware before the service that we would be giving thanks to God for Jelena today.
You'll have noticed that some of the promises today were made by Stacie, and some by both Stacie and Paul, so that each of them could speak with integrity. And the same is true for each of us. Given the different places we come from, not everyone here today will have the same approach to belief in God or commitment to this particular church; whatever the words we have said, each of us knows in our heart what we can truthfully promise. So bearing that in mind, let's look at what it is that this body of God's people in Broomhall has agreed to do: a set of promises that should apply not only to Jelena but also to our other children, Robyn and Toby Gibbens and Joshua, Harry and Thomas Middleton - and, indeed, to one another too, for who among us is so wise and strong that they do not need to find out more about God's love, to be inspired by Christian living or to be supported in prayer and friendship? Not me!
Just for the moment, Jelena's a bit young for formal instruction - though she's learning new things every day, for example about why it's worth the bother of eating solid food and not just drinking milk. But that delay is all to the good, for it gives us a few years to work out just what it is about the gospel of God's love we want her to know when she gets older. Our reading from Deuteronomy can inspire Stacie and Paul at home, and us at church, to integrate what we believe about God and how God wants us to live with how we live our everyday lives. Our psalm this morning says that living God's way is good news. But what is it? And can we be sure it is good news, and not just a deadly set of dos and don'ts to saddle the poor child with as she grows up?
Well, let's take a look at our Gospel reading - a reading often chosen both for thanksgivings and for baptisms of children, and you can see why.
Jesus is in the middle of teaching adults about important and sensitive matters - in this instance, about divorce and remarriage. And suddenly some parents burst into this deep theological discussion - for what? To ask Jesus to touch their children, to give thanks to God for them, to bless them. Where are their priorities, these parents? his friends think. Can't they wait till they see he's not so busy? But no: Jesus breaks off from his discussion in order to give his full attention to the children, and even says that those who cannot receive God's kingdom like little children will not be able to come into it.
What's going on here? It's not as if Jesus is posing for those Sunday-school pictures, centuries later, where clean and tidy children gather round his feet. In Jesus' day, children were not sweet. They were not the focus of the family. They were the lowest, most insignificant part of society, valued only when they could start working and bringing in some family income. By giving children his full attention, Jesus is saying that God values those whom everyone else ignores. By commending them as role models for the educated theologians who were discussing God's law with him - can you imagine their affronted expressions? - he is telling his friends not to be taken in by society's ways of valuing people. Just as children should be able to trust their parents to love them without having to pass exams in good behaviour, every human being, however old or young, of whatever status, can trust in God's love and can enter God's kingdom without having to show a list of accomplishments - for God already loves us, as God loves Jelena, before we do anything, bad or good.
To me, that sounds like very good news. If you'd asked the Pharisees, of course, they might have had a different point of view. We've worked hard to impress God, they might have said. But what is the point of our doing our level best to keep all God's laws, pray daily and get to synagogue every Saturday if children and other riff-raff can sneak into God's kingdom by the side door? It's a good question, and one to which I'll return in a little while.
But in the meantime, I'd like us to consider just how we plan to give Jelena her instruction in the gospel of God's love. I'm not suggesting we all sign up for work in the crèche or the children's church, though I'm sure Linda Callear and Sheila Dunstan would be very glad to speak to anyone who would like to try out their gifts in that area. While we have a responsibility to teach our children directly - for example, by sharing the stories of God's love we find in the Bible - I suspect that how we behave around them speaks far more loudly. Just think back to your own childhood, and the people who made an impression on you, whether for good or for ill. My guess is that you will have picked up what they really thought about life, the universe and everything by how they behaved when they thought you weren't looking. And that's where the second part of our promise, ‘the example of Christian faith and character', comes in.
When Paul tells the Christians in Rome, ‘Love does no wrong to a neighbour, therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law' it's obvious - but it also needs saying, to us as well as to them. And our neighbours whom we are to love are not only those who are like us, but also the little children: those apparently less important than us who break into our serious concerns at inconvenient moments and demand, by their presence, recognition and love.
Once I worked for a minister who preached regularly on neighbourly love. Then she would speak harshly to a member of staff who had not done some task to her satisfaction. She left me with a great role model - someone I never want to turn into - but that is not the sort of learning we want to offer Jelena and our other children as they grow up with us! So what do we want to give Jelena and her family? What will help her in the years ahead to grow in Christian faith and character? The final part of our promise was ‘The strong support of the family of God in prayer and friendship.' Prayer and friendship: two big commitments, which cannot be separated. For as we become better friends with Jelena, we will know better how to pray for her, for Paul and for Stacie. What are their joys? their sorrows? How can we offer them help and support, as individuals and as a family? And as we pray for them, the friendship between us will deepen.
But back to the question the Pharisees may have had in mind: why bother being good and keeping God's laws, why bother to bring Jelena up in the faith of the Gospel and the fellowship of the church, if God loves her anyway? Why not just leave her to grow up any way she feels like?
Every child needs rules, a framework to grow up in, ways to make good decisions before experience can guide us. For now, Jelena must learn that solid foods are the right thing for her to eat, so that in years to come she will both have good eating habits and be able to develop her own tastes in food. And that is true for faith, too. By instructing Jelena and all our children in the ways people through the centuries have loved God and lived their lives, by showing and telling them of the ways we live our Christian life in twenty-first century Sheffield, by praying for them and their families and offering them friendship and support, we can help them as they grow. But when Jelena becomes a woman she will make her own decisions about believing and living. Some will be good decisions, some will be mistakes; but whatever her choices, God will always love her. As the sentence from Hebrews we heard earlier reminds us: "God says: I will never leave you, nor forsake you". That's true for all of us, not just Jelena - and I reckon it's good news for all of us, Pharisees or children.